He said: 'There has been no shortage of reports pointing to the severe pressure on housing, schools and medical services that the influx of half a million immigrants from Eastern Europe has caused.

'And this is in addition to the other half million that have entered this country from elsewhere and the home office admits it can't trace.'

Dr Whittaker, a UK Independence Party MEP, was endorsing remarks made by former government minister Frank Field who has called for a halt to mass immigration.

Under European Union rules, nationals of the new Eastern EU members states gained automatic rights to residence in other EU countries. But while other 'old' EU countries agreed to restrict access to jobs until 2010, Britain opened its jobs market immediately.

Dr Whittaker said: 'It is the same with all the regulations that the EU imposes on us - Britain is always eager to be the first to implement them. Now we are paying the price.

'We have also signed up to EU directives that set out how to deal with asylum seekers. But it is obvious that the EU's immigration policy is a shambles. It could never work given open borders between EU countries.

'It is hard to take John Reid's new initiatives seriously - uniforms for passport officers, shuffling the chairs at the Home Office and keeping records of those that leave the country - from year 2013.

'Please can we finally have a credible and convincing plan for controlling immigration into Britain. This would mean standing our ground against the EU, for once. But it would do wonders to repair Blair's damaged reputation in the last few months of his lead-ership.'

UK Independence Party members were the only MEPs to vote against admitting Poland and the other new states when this was debated in the European Parliament in 2002.